Racism in public or public racism: doing anti-racism in ‘post-racial’ times

ABSTRACT

The paper examines racism's ‘debatability’ by looking at the interpellation of public acts of racism. The idea of racism as an event appears crucial to the judgment of its legitimacy. By examining racism as a disjointed series of public events that are often accompanied by elisions of the connections between racist ‘eruptions’ and systemic conditions, I shine light on what is meant by racism today. Racism can be theorized dually as both frozen and motile. This is due to emphasis being placed on what race is taken to be, rather than on what it does. Confusion over how to formulate anti-racism is based on this misconception of race at the core of much anti-racist thought, leading to an obscuration of racism. Critically examining some contemporary anti-racist activity, I briefly assess the role played by those who challenge racism in legitimizing or negating official interpretations of racism in contemporary Australia.

KEYWORDS:

• Racism
• race
• anti-racism
• asylum seekers
• migration
• Australia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Donald Sterling is the owner of US basketball team, the LA Clippers. ‘Exclusive: The Extended Donald Sterling Tape’, Deadspin, http://deadspin.com/exclusive-the-extended-donald-sterling-tape-1568291249. Accessed 13 August 2014.

2. ‘Copé denounces the existence of an “anti-white racism”', Le Figaro, 26 September 2012. http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2012/09/26/01002-20120926ARTFIG00428-cope-denonce-l-existence-d-un-racisme-anti-blanc.php. Accessed 10 August 2014.

3. ‘Woman charged over racist tirade on Sydney train’, ABC News, 4 July 2014. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-03/woman-facing-charges-over-racist-tirade-on-sydney-train/5569564. Accessed 22 August 2014.

4. ‘My Tram Experience’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGIEHhpfkKY. Accessed 22 August 2014.

5. ‘Racist train ranter Karen Bailey pleads guilty to offensive behaviour: video’.http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2454809/racist-train-ranter-karen-bailey-pleads-guilty-to-offensive-behaviour-video/. Accessed 12 February 2015.

6. Tweet by Jazi Rodas cited in Chalmers (2014) ‘Outraged By Coffee Shop Owner's Racism, Aussies Respond With, Well, Racism’, New Matilda 19 August, 2014. https://newmatilda.com/2014/08/19/outraged-coffee-shop-owners-racism-aussies-respond-well-racism. Accessed 24 August 2014.

7. Tweet by Katerina Grivakis.

8. ‘“He cannot treat people this way”: Barista who was refused a job in an inner-city Sydney café because he is black wants to take owner to court’, The Daily Mail 18 August 2014. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2727531/He-treat-people-way-Barista-refused-job-inner-city-Sydney-cafe-black-considering-legal-action.html. Accessed 24 August 2014.

9. May 26 is Sorry Day in Australia. It commemorates the so-called Stolen Generation of Aboriginal children forcibly taken from their families to be assimilated into white society.

10. In Australia, both sides of politics are invested in a partnership between the state and the private sector to control unwanted migration: a ‘border industrial complex’. Transfield, the company that runs offshore detention, will be paid US$2 billion dollars over three years.

11. ‘Manus Island – an insider's report’. http://taramoss.com/manus-island-insiders-report/. Accessed 24 August 2014.

12. ‘Morrison releases Manus Island Report’, SBS News, 27 May 2014. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/05/27/morrison-releases-manus-island-riot-report. Accessed 24 August 2014.

13. Such studies include most prominently ‘Mapping Social Cohesion 2013’ (Markus 2014) and Challenging Racism (http://www.uws.edu.au/ssap/ssap/research/challenging_racism).